


Trip Tucker, Golden Retriever Extraordinaire

by coolbreezemage



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Animal Transformation, Dogs, First Contact, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:36:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29965785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolbreezemage/pseuds/coolbreezemage
Summary: “What’s going on, Doctor? Who’s this?” Archer dropped into a crouch on the floor and held out a hand. The dog sniffed at it, and then bounded forward. “Please don’t tell me you’re running experiments on him.”“He’s not one of mine, Captain. We’re currently trying to determine his origins.”The dog licked Archer’s face.A machine beeped. Phlox hummed. “You might not want to believe this, Captain, but this dog is a perfect match for Commander Tucker’s life signs.”
Comments: 11
Kudos: 16





	Trip Tucker, Golden Retriever Extraordinaire

The party on the alien ship had been very, very nice, Hoshi decided. Their tall, purple-skinned hosts certainly knew how to entertain guests. There’d been soft instrumental music from the ship’s musicians, sweet, bubbly drinks, and plate after plate of rich, tasty cakes and dumplings and tiny sandwiches. 

And the conversation! The Aberfassi ship was an exploration vessel built specifically for First Contacts. Which meant there was an entire team of linguists on board. By the time she returned to Enterprise, Hoshi had enough information swimming in her head to fill at least one thesis, maybe two. The Aberfassi used four distinct dialects aboard ship. Which one somebody used depending on the job or role of the speaker, and their pronouns and verbs inflected based on the relative status of the speaker and audience. Which was something the UT still struggled with. Fortunately, their hosts were understanding. But it still led to a few awkward moments where someone used a word far too humble or grandiose for the situation at hand. 

“I don’t know how you keep it all in your head,” Trip had said to her at one point. “I’ve had to learn a heck of a lot of manners in my day, but this is ridiculous. It’s hard to go five words without accidentally offending someone!” He might be a genius when it came to engines, but alien languages puzzled him.

“You get used to it,” Hoshi told him. “Seriously, coming from Japanese? This isn’t that tough.” 

“If you say so,” Trip had said, and gone off to grab more food.

The Aberfassi linguists were just as eager to share as she was to learn. They’d even given her a collection of texts to study, ranging from scientific articles to ancient fables to popular novels. Now, she clutched the padd close to her chest as she headed to Sickbay.

Even the necessary chore of post-alien-contact medical checkups wasn’t enough to douse her enthusiasm. The fact that she couldn’t go right back to her quarters and get started, however, that did, a little.

She sighed in disappointment as Phlox’s injection washed away the pleasant fuzz from the drinks. 

“I’m sorry, Ensign,” Phlox said, not sounding sorry at all, “but you do have bridge duty in twenty minutes.”

Hoshi grumbled. “Should’ve gotten Markus to take it. But I already used up all my favors so I could be free for movie night last week…”

At least it should be an easy shift. There weren’t many other ships in this sector, and the few that did show up on scanners were usually cargo haulers that preferred to mind their own business. 

With Archer off-duty (lucky him), T’Pol was in command, but she’d disdained the captain’s chair in favor of her usual science console. One of Reed’s men had his eye on the weapons display, and it seemed Mayweather also hadn’t managed to escape duty this evening. 

“Anything interesting happen while I was away?” Hoshi asked.

“There is nothing of note to report,” T’Pol said.

“Good, good.” She yawned. “Let’s hope the rest of the shift is just as boring. I’m not up for averting any wars today.” 

T’Pol eyed her. “If you are unwell, I’m certain we can locate a replacement.”

“No, I’m fine. Just tired. It was a good party. I just wish Phlox didn’t have to get us sober so quickly. Those were some nice drinks.”

“I will never understand the human obsession with intoxicants,” T’Pol said. “Why would you willingly ingest something that limits your mental and physical capabilities?” 

Hoshi laughed. “Because it’s fun! It relaxes us. You should try it sometime.”

T’Pol lifted her chin. “I prefer meditation.”

“Sure, but you’re missing out.”

There was no response to that.

Hoshi took her station, ran a scan of general frequencies, then pulled up the logs for the past few hours. And nearly screamed when something warm and wet nuzzled into her free hand. 

There was a dog sitting next to her chair. A large one, sunshine-yellow, with floppy ears and big dark eyes.

“What the heck?”

“Ensign?” T’Pol called, giving her that look that said she wasn’t entirely sure whether there was actually something wrong or that randomly yelping in shock was just a strange human custom nobody had bothered to tell her about. 

Hoshi pointed. “Look at this!”

Doubtful, T’Pol rounded her station, and stopped in her tracks at the sight before her. The dog pawed at the deck, then looked up at her, tongue lolling happily out of its mouth and tail thumping against the plating.

“That is… unexpected.”

“That’s really there, right?” For a moment Hoshi wondered if there’d been some sort of hallucinogen in those alien cocktails, but T’Pol was looking at the creature too, so she knew she wasn’t imagining it.

“It is,” T’Pol said.

Hoshi stared. “What is it?” A shapeshifter, a shared hallucination? Maybe she’d picked up some sort of brain bug on the Aberfassi ship and Phlox hadn’t caught it.

“It is an Earth canine,” T’Pol announced. “The same species as Porthos, despite the obvious physical differences.”

“I know _that_ ,” Hoshi protested. “But what’s it doing here? We’re lightyears away from Earth and I know I didn’t see any dogs on the Aberfassi ship.”

T’Pol strode to the wall and reached for a button. “T’Pol to Sickbay.”

Phlox’s ever-cheery voice came over the intercom. “Phlox here, what’s the problem, Subcommander?”

“We have an intruder on board, Doctor. It appears to have taken the form of an Earth organism.”

“Well now, that’s very strange. I’ll come and take a look.”

As it turned out, Phlox coming all the way to the bridge was a bit of a waste of time, because there wasn’t much he could do with a handheld scanner and a medkit better suited for first aid than veterinary detective work. 

For anything more, they’d have to take it to Sickbay.

“Come,” Phlox ordered. 

To Hoshi’s surprise, the dog followed. It padded alongside them all the way through the corridors, confusing quite a few crewmen on the way. 

“Hm, I wasn’t expecting that would work quite so well,” Phlox said, sounding very pleased with himself. 

The dog was very sweet, Hoshi had to admit, even if she wasn’t totally comfortable with how big it was or how fast it moved. Or its unknown origins. Did this have something to do with the Aberfassi? They hadn’t said anything at all about animals or pets or anything like this.

In Sickbay, it sniffed curiously around the edges of the room. Phlox’s creatures chirped and buzzed and rattled their cages in unease, but the dog didn’t seem to react. 

Phlox tapped the examination table. “Come here. Up!” 

The dog needed no more prompting than that to leap up there and sit. 

“Hmm, he seems to know basic commands quite well,” Phlox observed. “Certainly better than my Tanerean stoats.” 

“Sure, Doctor, but what are we going to do with him?”

“Maybe Porthos will have a friend?” Phlox suggested, lifting one of the dog’s ears to scan inside it. It sat patiently while he poked and prodded, which Hoshi thought was very unlike most animals she’d known.

The doors slid open and Captain Archer stepped inside.

“Has anyone seen Trip? He didn’t report to Engineering after he got back from the Aberfassi ship.”

Hoshi shook her head. “He left before I did. Maybe he went to bed?”

Archer looked to Phlox. “Doctor, you scanned him, did you see anything odd?”

“Not at all. He was clean as an Altarian honeycomb after lickertongue season.”

The dog jumped down off the examining table and ran towards Archer, who stopped and stared at it in disbelief.

“What’s going on, Doctor? Who’s this?” Archer dropped into a crouch on the floor and held out a hand. The dog sniffed at it, and then bounded forward. “Please don’t tell me you’re running experiments on him,” he said around the nose shoved in his face.

“He’s not one of mine, Captain. We’re currently trying to determine his origins.”

The dog licked Archer’s face. Hoshi winced, but Archer seemed perfectly fine with it. 

“Oh, aren’t you a good boy? A big boy! Now where did you come from?”

A machine beeped. Phlox hummed. “I might have an answer to both your questions.” He held out a padd. “You might not want to believe this, Captain, but this dog is a perfect match for Commander Tucker’s life signs.”

Archer, who’d all but dragged the dog into his lap by that point, pulled away with a horrified look on his face.

“Trip?” he hazarded. 

The dog abruptly sat and stared up at him with a small whine.

Archer let out a heavy sigh. “Great. Just what we need.”

The dog - Trip - whined again, concerned, and hurried forward to nose at Archer’s hands.

Clearly he couldn’t help it, he scratched the dog’s ears as if it really was just a dog.

“You all right, boy?” he said automatically. “Uh, Commander.” 

The dog barked. 

Phlox hummed. “He seems to enjoy the attention. I don’t believe it will do any harm. In all regards except for his species, he’s in perfect health.”

“I suppose that’s the best news we can expect,” Archer said.

Hoshi looked from the dog to Archer to Phlox. “He’s very cute, but we need our Chief Engineer back.”

Archer nodded, and, with what looked like a great deal of effort, pulled himself away from the dog and stood. “Doctor, I’m trusting you to get him back.”

“Already working on it, Captain. In the meantime, where do you suggest we house the Commander? I’m afraid I don’t have space for him here. We could return him to his quarters but I’d rather not leave him unsupervised.”

“He can stay with me for now, but we’re going to have to work something out. He might look like a dog, but he’s still my Chief Engineer and he deserves respect.” The energy he put in those words was somewhat spoiled by the tongue lolling out of the dog’s happy mouth, but neither Hoshi nor Phlox dared to say anything on the matter.

Archer looked to Hoshi. “Ensign, I’m going to need a full report on what happened at that party. But first, we’re going to call over and ask if they know what the hell’s going on.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

“Oh, this is a most [ _rare / awe-inspiring / dangerous_ ] occurrence!” the Aberfassi ambassador said, mouthpieces twitching in what might be amusement. “We don’t often find people who are compatible with the [ _trick / procedure / game_ ]. Please do keep us informed as to the outcome!”

“The outcome?” Hoshi questioned. “What are you expecting is going to happen?”

“We don’t know. That’s the point of it!” She sounded absolutely delighted at the prospect.

“You said this is a game. Did he ask to play? How did you know he was compatible?”

The alien on the screen clicked in confusion. “No, that would not be [ _proper / best_ ].”

“Is this going to harm him? How long is it going to last?” Hoshi pressed.

The ambassador drew back in shock. “Hurt him? No! The process will [ _enhance / mature_ ] the [ _honored?_ ] subject!”

“Ambassador,” Archer said from over Hoshi’s shoulder, “I understand this might be a normal occurrence for you, but we’ve never seen anything like it before. And as it concerns the welfare of a member of my crew, I’m going to have to demand a straight answer. Is it possible we could speak to one of your medical professionals?”

The Ambassador’s response was, once again, far too cheery for the situation. “Of course! I’ll gladly summon one. We are looking forward to the outcome!”

It was, unfortunately, not much help. The dialect used by doctors, engineers, and scientists was sadly the one Hoshi was least familiar with, and the one the UT had the most trouble with. She could catch most of the words, but she was almost certain that the odd short prefixes appended to some of the words and the hums punctuating innocuous-seeming lines added a level of subtlety and implication that she simply couldn’t guess at. 

The ship’s head doctor kept repeating a phrase, _k’rah neserth_. It might have been an apology, but it might also have been good wishes, or simply a polite formality. Hoshi didn’t know enough to say. That was sometimes one of the hardest parts of translating, figuring out which phrases were idiomatic and which literal. Usually, she was pretty good at that. It was like a puzzle where every answer drew connections between her and the speakers. 

“Can you explain the process in, uh, simpler terms?” she tried, after the second time the doctor’s breakneck-speed summary came out of the UT as just so much static and error tones. 

The doctor shook his head in what could only be exasperation and said, very slowly, “Just enjoy the [ _game?_ ], my friend.”

Archer frowned. “We don’t have time to play a game,” he insisted. “We need you to return Commander Tucker to his original body.” 

“In time, all in good time! Now, I have patients to attend to.”

The doctor abruptly cut the link short. Hoshi sank back in her chair and groaned. “Doesn’t look like we’re going to get anything useful out of them, Captain.”

“Keep trying. See if you can find anything in the databases they’ve shared with us. In the meantime… I’m going to try and get Trip settled in.”

* * *

To Archer’s tremendous relief, the dog-ified Tucker and Porthos got along better than he’d expected. And to his even greater relief, did so with a minimum of butt-sniffing. 

He thumped down on his bed and shook his head. “What are we going to do, boys?”

Phlox had done several neural scans, but the results had been inconclusive as to how much exactly Trip was aware of. He didn’t seem unhappy. In fact, he seemed just as cheerful and bright as any other well-loved dog Archer had met. But the life of a dog wasn’t exactly dignified, and so Archer couldn’t help but worry. 

He got up and pulled an old blanket out of the closet and folded it up into a makeshift dog bed, because Porthos’s wasn’t big enough, and anyway there was no way Archer would dethrone the cabin’s top dog even for an officer. 

“Maybe we can get Hoshi to rig up a doggy keyboard,” he mused aloud, then shook his head. “No, not when she’s busy looking for clues to why this happened.”

After Tucker was settled on the bed, he went to his desk and scrolled through his messages, only half paying attention to the routine updates and mundane requests. 

Starfleet was going to want a report on this. He would put it off as long as possible, in case they found a solution in the next few days - God, he hoped they found a solution - but he couldn’t put it off forever. He didn’t even know where to begin. 

He wondered if anyone at Command would even believe it. He wouldn’t have believed in any of it if someone had told him, before they launched, what _Enterprise_ would encounter out in space.

He heard a whine, and looked up to find Tucker nosing at Porthos’s empty food bowl. 

“You hungry?” Archer eyed the bag of kibble in the cabinet. There was no way he was giving one of his officers dog food, even if he was in fact currently a dog.

So he headed down to the galley where Chef obligingly put together a dog-safe blend of meat and vegetables that even Archer had to admit looked fairly appealing. Better than survival rations, at least. It didn’t feel right giving one of them dog food and the other real food, so he brought back enough for Porthos too.

“I guess you’re both getting a treat tonight,” he said, setting out the bowls to a reception of drooling mouths and wagging tails. 

“We can last like this for a few days, right, boys?”

He didn’t know if either of them understood him, but they seemed to agree.

* * *

Hoshi sat on her bed with a cup of tea and half a dozen padds spread out around her, each displaying a different Aberfassi text. The medical journals - what she could make out of them, at least - has been of little help. She’d found what she _thought_ might be references to Trip’s… condition, but they were only dry reports consisting of onset and resolution dates. If she was reading them right, some cases were over in a day or two, while others lasted weeks. The reports made absolutely no mention of what treatment was used. There were a few phrases here and there that seemed like euphemisms for something widely-known, but there was no way she could decipher those without the cultural context the journals weren’t willing to give.

So she’d turned to the historical texts, and the novels, and the fables. It was always interesting, reading stories from alien cultures. Just like human stories, they had their tropes and trends and cliches, but coming at them as a stranger made them all the more noticeable. 

The different sectors of Aberfassi society had different storytelling traditions, different sorts of heroes and adventures and tropes, but there were some that were loved by all. 

There were lots of stories about journeys, and the travelers always ended up somewhere different and better than where they’d planned. Stories of students and teachers reuniting after a long time apart to solve a problem important to them both. And many, many romances, especially ones between social classes, fraught with misunderstandings and social pressure.

But nothing about transformations. Even when she searched some of the terms from the medical journal, she found nothing. It didn’t help that the Aberfassi databases didn’t play nice with the Enterprise computer’s search algorithms. 

Just when she was ready to give up, a line caught her eye. _The teaching-master wandered around in this new form until he smelled with his new nose something strange. His luck was upon him now._

And there was that phrase again, _k’rah neserth._ But now she had the context to figure out what it meant. It _was_ a sort of good wishes, but not just in a hopeful way. It was a phrase only used when the good fortune was assured, but the person hadn’t yet learned its form. 

She was getting closer. 

* * *

T’Pol queried the computer for the Captain’s location. It told her he was in the shuttlebay. Nothing on that day’s schedule necessitated it, and she was unaware of any maintenance that he might be checking in on the progress of, so she called him.

No response. She was about to try again when he picked up. “Archer here, is there something wrong?”

“No, Captain. But there is a meeting soon, and since you are usually early, I was wondering where you were.”

Archer groaned. “Must have lost track of time. Thanks for the reminder.” 

A loud woof echoed through the communicator.

“I see Commander Tucker is with you. May I ask why?”

“You should come down and see for yourself. There’s enough time before the meeting. Actually, I was thinking of asking everyone to come down here instead.”

Curious. “That can be arranged, if you wish. But do not see your reasoning for it.”

“Come and see!”

There was no refusing him when he was in one of those moods. T’Pol arrived in the shuttlebay 1.2 minutes later to find a most curious sight. Captain Archer was throwing a circular object through the air for the dog to retrieve and bring back to him. It seemed utterly pointless, but both were clearly enjoying it. 

Archer threw the disk again, higher this time. The dog chased after it, leaping on top of a supply crate and then high into the air to catch it in his mouth. 

“Good job!” Archer called. “Bring it back!” 

The dog obeyed, claws clicking on the shuttlebay floor as he ran. 

“Captain, I fail to see the purpose of this activity.”

Archer shook his head at her and reached for the disk again. “It’s fun. And it gets him some exercise. I’m sure he doesn’t like being cooped up all day. And he needs a break from all those tests Phlox is running on him.”

Something knocked against her leg. It was Tucker, sitting back on his haunches, tail thumping, holding out the disk in his mouth.

“He wants you to take it,” Archer told her, unnecessarily. 

Seeing no other options, she took the disk, suppressing an expression of disgust at the saliva clinging to its surface.

“Captain, might I remind you that this is not an Earth canine but in fact your Chief Engineer?”

“I know that, Subcommander. But right now, he seems perfectly happy with doggy pastimes, and who would I be to deny him that?”

 _A sensible commanding officer_ , T’Pol thought, but didn’t say. She studied the item in her hands. It was made of purple plastic, round, lightweight, and curled over on the edges. On the top it was printed with the words _STARFLEET ACADEMY FRISBEE CLUB._

“You gotta throw it like this,” Archer told her, miming a circular flicking motion with his arm. “Get some spin on it.”

She tossed the disk through the air and watched Tucker dive after it.

“Good throw,” Archer said. T’Pol bristled at being praised in much the same way as the dog.

“It is basic physics,” she replied. “Captain, the meeting.”

He groaned in frustration. “Yeah, I know. Call Reed and Mayweather and have them come down here. We don’t have much to talk about anyway, so let’s make it quick.” 

If T’Pol were human, she might have sighed, but she was Vulcan, so she did not, and carried out the Captain’s orders without complaint. 

If the meeting soon dissolved into a human vs canine frisbee match with absolutely no strategic value to the mission, Captain Archer had only himself to blame.

* * *

Hoshi presented herself at Archer’s desk, stack of padds in hand. “Captain, I think I’ve found something.” 

“What’ve you got, Ensign?” Archer motioned for her to sit.

“I found a bunch of, uh, I guess you’d say fairy tales about transformations that look just like Trip’s.”

Archer leaned forward. “What did you learn?”

“In all these stories,” she said, pointing to the hastily-translated texts, “the transformation happens when the hero goes to a strange new place, and it lasts until they go back to their normal environment and change something about it.”

“Change something?”

“Sometimes they chase away or kill someone who was planning to betray them,” Hoshi explained. Damn, maybe she shouldn’t have started with that. “Or- or they find a hidden stash of riches. Or they discover something wrong with their life that they wouldn’t have noticed in their normal body. I think that’s why the process happens. If there’s something specific the subject needs to uncover. That’s why it’s so rare. Life isn’t usually that simple.”

“Well, let’s hope there’s no traitors onboard,” Archer said. “Trip’s normal environment… so Engineering?”

“That sounds like the best answer we’ve got, yeah.”

“And the Aberfassi wouldn’t tell us this because?”

Hoshi shared his irritation. “There’s a ton of taboos around the process. You’re not supposed to talk about the details. There’s a few stories where someone does that, and it always leads to terrible things happening.”

Archer frowned. “So have we jinxed this by talking about it now?”

Hoshi shook her head. “I don’t think so, sir. As long as we don’t tell Commander Tucker our reasoning, I think it’ll be fine.” Not that she believed in alien curses anyway. Though it wouldn’t surprise her after some of the things she’d seen. 

“All right then. Let’s see what we can do. I’ll go pick him up and you come meet me in Engineering in ten minutes.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Five minutes later, a golden retriever bounded through the doors into Engineering, Archer hurrying behind him. 

The Engineering crew stared. They’d all been briefed on the situation, of course, but Hoshi imagined that hearing it and seeing it were two different things. 

“If I find dog hair in the plasma relays…” someone muttered, but a glance from Archer shut them up.

“Let him work,” he said, with a very serious voice for someone overseeing a creature that looked more suited to running on the beach than sniffing out… whatever it was he was supposed to find. 

For a few long minutes, it didn’t look like anything was going to happen. Tucker walked around, tail wagging, sniffing each of his staff in turn and receiving as many scratches and head pats as any dog could dream of. 

Hoshi watched as he made his way around the room. Sometimes she glanced to Archer, hoping he wouldn’t turn around and say her plan was silly and obviously not going to work, but his eyes were fixed just as intently on the dog. 

Tucked paced methodically past every panel, sniffing at the edges and sometimes checking a seal with a careful paw. Then to the upper level, and down again, squeezing himself between crates of supplies into spaces too small for a human to fit. 

Just when Hoshi thought this had all been an embarrassing waste of time, Tucker barked once, loudly, and sat down with a paw resting on a dusty access panel. 

“Huh,” Archer said, as an engineer went over to check it out. He pulled the panel off, ran a scanner over the softly-blinking equipment inside.

“I can’t see anything wrong here, Captain,” he said. Before Archer could reply, Tucker whined loudly and pawed the floor. The engineer hesitated, peered back into the conduit. “But I’ll run some more detailed scans. You’ll have a report as soon as we find anything.”

Satisfied, Tucker stood up and returned to Archer’s side. 

Archer turned to Hoshi. “Looks like you might have saved us, Ensign,” he said.

She risked a smile. “I hope you’re right, sir.”

“We’re very, very lucky, Captain,” the lieutenant from Engineering reported, handing Archer a padd. “There was a cracked resonator assembly in the secondary flow regulator. If we’d switched to backup power with that sort of fault in the system, it would’ve blown the warp core in two seconds.”

Archer repressed a shiver. “How long was it broken? Why didn’t we know earlier?” 

The lieutenant shook her head. “Our standard diagnostics wouldn’t have caught it, sir. You’d need a hands-on survey to find that sort of a fault.” She glanced at Tucker, sitting a few feet away, watching the conversation as if he understood it. “Or I suppose paws-on?” she added.

“Is it fixed?” Archer asked.

“Yes, sir, and we’ve checked the rest of the relays. They’re all good as new.”

“Good, good.” Archer set the padd aside. “Thanks for the report. You’re dismissed.”

The lieutenant paused in the doorway. “Sir?”

“What is it, Lieutenant?” 

Another glance at Tucker. “Do you know, uh, when we can expect to have the Commander back? We all miss him down in Engineering.”

Archer was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But we’re meeting with Phlox in a bit, and he might be able to give us an indication. I’m sure it won’t be too long.” He hoped so, at least. 

“Thank you, sir.” The lieutenant nodded and left, the door sliding shut behind her. 

Archer sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. Tucker stood up and went to nose at his hand. There’d been absolutely no sign since they’d returned from Engineering that he was anything other than a dog, and a dog that was going to remain a dog.

“What are we going to do, Trip?” he said, scratching his ears.

Maybe Hoshi’s fairy tales were right, and they’d ruined it by talking about it. Or the tales had no truth in the first place and there was no way that sniffing out a leaking component was enough to undo whatever had been done to Trip. 

Their only hope now was that Phlox could somehow figure it out. 

Archer sat on his bed with a padd, trying to focus on reading reports while waiting for Phlox’s call. He didn’t mean to fall asleep, but he hadn’t gotten much rest in the past few days, and Academy training had taught him to take rest where and when he could find it.

“Uh, Captain?”

Archer pulled himself awake and blearily groped for the comms button before realizing the voice was coming from the foot of the bed.

“Trip!”

Tucker - human-shaped, this time - was sitting on the floor with a very confused Porthos sniffing around him. He looked none the worse for wear except for the fact that he was entirely naked.

“You, uh, don’t happen to have a spare uniform lying around or something?”

“I- I think I can find something.”

* * *

“We’re glad to have you back, Commander,” Phlox said, shoving a scanner in his face. 

“You did good work, Trip,” Archer said. T’Pol, standing beside him, nodded slightly but said nothing.

Trip turned to the Captain, meaning that Phlox grabbed one of his ears to hold his head still.

“Ow… I don’t know what it was, Captain, but something about that regulator just wasn’t right. I’m glad I was able to find it.”

“We all are. How much do you remember?” 

“Not much. It’s like a dream or something. I knew I needed to find something, but I didn’t know where it was. So that was kinda freaky. But it was mostly good. I guess being a dog is pretty fun, you know? But after all that, I think I’d much rather be a man.” 

“I agree,” Archer said. “Well, I’ll leave you to rest. I can handle the reports, but, uh, Starfleet might have some questions for you.”

“I’ll try my best to answer them.”

Archer headed back to work. Once the door swooshed closed, Trip tried to stand, but the Doctor pushed him down again.

“Not yet,” he scolded. “We have several more tests to run.” He sounded far too excited about that.

“Aw, Doc, how long do I gotta stay here? I heard Chef’s making something good tonight.” He glanced up at T’Pol as if she might help plead his case.

T’Pol remained unmoved. “Regulations dictate that you must undergo a full examination before allowing exposure to the rest of the crew.”

Trip stared at her, disbelief clear on his face. “We got regulations for people getting transformed into puppy dogs?”

“No,” T’Pol clarified, “but there are regulations for crewmembers who have undergone significant genetic alteration at the hands of aliens. The Doctor will likely want to keep you for observation.”

Trip drooped.

“You are correct, Subcommander,” Phlox said. Then he turned to Trip. “But I don’t see why we can’t have someone deliver you a plate.”

He smiled. “Thanks, Doc. Can’t say I’ll miss the dog bowl.” 

“Oh, no worries, not at all,” Phlox said, wandering over to a console to work on who-knows-what. “This is going to make a _very_ interesting report to the Interspecies Medical Exchange. I will of course leave your name and any identifying details out of it, Commander, but if this goes well I may be asked to make a presentation on the matter!” He sounded absolutely delighted by the possibility.

Trip shrugged. “Knock yourself out.” At least he wasn’t pregnant again. 

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”

At least someone would. Trip sighed and settled in for the night.

  
  



End file.
